Wisconsin native, conservative critic of everything.
"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." ---G K Chesterton
"The only objective of Liberty is Life" --G K Chesterton
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions" --G K Chesterton
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

Friday, February 15, 2008

GWB: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Ol' GWB and his boyzzz are a real piece of work. Here are a few excerpts from an article which lays out the consequences of the DOJ's amicus on Heller, written by Robert Levy, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and co-counsel to the respondent in D.C. v. Heller.

If you think the District of Columbia's ban on all functional firearms in all homes is a reasonable regulation under the Second Amendment, you'll love the friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Bush administration in D.C. v. Heller, now before the Supreme Court....The Justice Department says the Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the D.C. ban might cast doubt on the constitutionality of existing federal legislation, including machine-gun regulations. So the administration urged that Heller be returned to the lower courts for appropriate fact-finding to determine whether rifles and shotguns in the home, as permitted by the D.C. Code, are an adequate substitute for handgunsYup. Keeping a shotgun in your night-stand is "adequate"--if your nightstand happens to be a full-size Buick.

...The proper standard of review under the Second Amendment is what the courts have termed strict scrutiny. Government must justify its restrictions by showing that they are narrowly tailored to satisfy a compelling governmental interest. That's a tough test, but not fatal. Traditionally, the court has strictly scrutinized all regulations that infringe on fundamental rights deeply rooted in the nation's history and traditions. Virtually all of the Bill of Rights qualifies, and the right to keep and bear arms is no exception.

In fact, the Court of Appeals did not suggest that any federal gun regulations (including those on machine guns) are unconstitutional. Moreover, under the Supreme Court's 1939 precedent, U.S. v. Miller, machine guns are not protected by the Second Amendment without showing that they are in common use by civilians.I don't know about you, but I haven't heard any machine-gun fire in my neighborhood lately. And although Frankovis may know of a few full-auto uses by perps in the City of Milwaukee, I can't recall any during my lifetime (e.g., since dinosaurs.)

Tell me again that a Lefty Pubbie (like, for example, McCain) is REALLY good for the country.